The Lame Excuses of a Bleeding Heart Liberal?

I was intrigued by Neil Boortz’s commencement address in which he lampooned us Liberals.

Allow me to respond in not so brief detail.

Neil said:

Now, I realize that most of you consider yourselves Liberals. In fact, you are probably very proud of your liberal views. You care so much. You feel so much. You want to help so much. After all, you’re a compassionate and caring person, aren’t you now? Well, isn’t that just so extraordinarily special. Now, at this age, is as good a time as any to be a liberal; as good a time as any to know absolutely everything. You have plenty of time, starting tomorrow, for the truth to set in.

Well, Neil’s right. We Liberals have a tendency to be self-righteous.. a human flaw unshared by Conservatives? Don’t we all need to feel we are right in order to feel safe?
Constant self-doubt would make us just as vulnerable as would a petrified certainty in a belief or superstition..

Neil again: So here are the first assignments for your initial class in reality: Pay attention to the news, read newspapers, and listen to the words and phrases that proud Liberals use to promote their causes. Then, compare the words of the left to the words and phrases you hear from those evil, heartless, greedy conservatives. From the Left you will hear “I feel.” From the Right you will hear “I think.”

I would say we are all human and 95% of our lives is emotionalism. Liberals are no more or less emotional than conservatives. We’re just emotional about different things. Some people get a lump in their throat over Martin Luther King, others over John Wayne. (You may admire John more.. but no one ever threw him in jail or hit him with clubs to keep him from voting or sitting in a diner!)

From the Liberals you will hear references to groups—The Blacks, the Poor, The Rich, The Disadvantaged, The Less Fortunate. From the Right you will hear references to individuals. On the Left you hear talk of group rights; on the Right, individual rights.That about sums it up, really: Liberals feel. Liberals care. They are pack animals whose identity is tied up in group dynamics. Conservatives and Libertarians think—and, setting aside the theocracy crowd, their identity is centered on the individual.

Here indeed is the central difference between us Bleeding Heart Liberals and Conservatives. How to best protect the rights of the individual.
In a nutshell we Liberals believe in spending a larger portion of the gross national product on “Insurance.”
Sensible people have fire insurance, home insurance, car insurance.
Liberals promoted and installed programs like Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, not because they thought these programs were 100% effective – but because we thought the alternative, the absence of such programs was much worse and much more dangerous for society.

If you didn’t know it in New England for most of the 18th century they had something called “subscription” fire departments. If you did not make private yearly payments when your house caught fire they would ignore you. Guess whose houses burned down. Yes,the poor’s. But susbscription was replaced by communal when they realized that poor people’s fires spread to rich peoples’ house, too.. imagine that!
Would you Libertarians like to go back to private fire departments, police forces and toll roads? Private armies? No? Ludicrous ideas?

But living in the modern world without sensible taxation and the sensible use of taxation is equally ludicrous and horrendously dangerous.
(We all agree that taxations is needed.. although when income tax first appeared in 1912 the Republican party screamed that 8% would devastate the nation!)
Most of us would agree that we can debate tax rates and we can discuss what to use tax money for. However, conservatives feel it unimportant when slamming Washington to discuss the red rural states’ subsidies of tobacco growing and similar “socialistic” support – or the plundering of taxpayers’ money by war contractors. (see details below for shocking evidence.) Conservatives hate Washington when they’re out of office and not funneling tax dollars to their friends and causes… or am I wrong?


Liberals feel that their favored groups have enforceable rights to the property and services of productive individuals. Conservative and Libertarians, I among them I might add, think that individuals have the right to protect their lives and their property from the plunder of the masses.

Here again we differ over which is more effective and humane.. spending most of our “insurance” money on police and prisons.. or education and yes, welfare. There are those who gladly retreat behind the walls of gated communities, warm in the bosom of the like-minded and safe from the hoards of unwashed. But the very rich and the very cynical are already buying their own cute little islands in the quickly growing Dubai city, as a refuge from the deluge and anarchy to come. Solid gold faucets while the rest of the world runs out of water. That’s some way to wash your hands of others’ misery!

If, by the time you reach the age of 30, you do not consider yourself to be a libertarian or a conservative, rush right back here as quickly as you can and apply for a faculty position.

Neil’s right yet again. People do tend to become conservative as they grow older. Wisdom.. or perhaps weariness? We are disappointed again and again by the flaws of others.. and our own? We have fewer reasons to be optimistic as we see our own health and the health of our friend’s decline. But that doesn’t mean that pessimism is a virtue or a guiding trait to be proud of!

Again, most of the major advances, improvements in human history have been inspired by liberalism. Social reformers and Liberals opposed slavery and got it abolished, they stopped segregation, insured women and minorities right to vote, worked for free speech. For Freedom!

It’s hard to remember that comedian Lenny Bruce was thrown in jail in Boston and New York in the 1960’s, had his cabaret performer’s license revoked – his livelihood taken away from him because he made jokes about the Catholic church!!
Remember when you couldn’t say pregnant on TV? Is that the world you long for? The iron fist of prudery and enforced ignorance?

Yes, sadly the modern world is disgustingly vulgar much of the time. But that vulgarity is just a sign of freedom. And remember, of all the major networks, Fox produces the most vulgar shows! (The clever Rupert Murdoch found out long ago that vulgar entertainment and vulgar political ideas sell best!)

First is that favorite buzz word of the media, government and academia: Diversity! You have been taught that the real value of any group of people - be it a social group, an employee group, a management group, whatever - is based on diversity. This is a favored liberal ideal because diversity is based not on an individual’s abilities or character, but on a person’s identity and status as a member of a group. Yes, it’s that liberal group identity thing again.

Within the great diversity movement group identification - be it racial, gender based, or some other minority status - means more than the individual’s integrity, character or other qualifications.

Here again we meet this conservative moaning and bitching about racial quotas. First of all no college and university in America has a black student percentage of 12% which would match their numbers in population – even with quotas! In other words they are by no means over-represented.

On the other hand from the 18th century down to the 1950’s schools like Harvard, Princeton and Yale had limitations on the numbers of Jews that could be admitted! They were over represented because of their studiousness! Now Oriental kids are being targeted for reverse quotas, too. Conservative white people hate quotas unless their kids are the beneficiaries!

You may, for instance, think that you have a right to health care. After all, Hillary said so, didn’t she? But you cannot receive health care unless some doctor or health practitioner surrenders some of his time - his life - to you. He may be willing to do this for compensation, but that’s his choice. You have no “right” to his time or property. You have no right to his or any other person’s life or to any portion thereof.

Believe it or not doctors in Europe are well off and content without being obscenely rich, despite working in “socialized” medicine. Believe me, too, that hospitals in Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Italy.. and yes, France are every bit as good as the ones in America – plus in these countries if you want to go to a private doctor or hospital you can! They exist! No one is stopping anyone wealthy from buying better care. But on the other hand no one is left to die either.

To imply that one person is homeless, destitute, dirty, drunk, spaced out on drugs, unemployable, and generally miserable because he is “less fortunate” is to imply that a successful person - one with a job, a home and a future - is in that position because he or she was “fortunate.” The dictionary says that fortunate means “having derived good from an unexpected place.” There is nothing unexpected about deriving good from hard work. There is also nothing unexpected about deriving misery from choosing drugs, alcohol, and the street.

Excuse me but this is the stupidest, most heartless part!
We all know Paris Hilton. Did she earn those millions! Did George W become governor of Texas on his own or President? (George senior’s father was a millionaire and a senator!) How in the world can Neil claim that no one in the world is born lucky or unlucky? If your mother is a crack whore and you never amount to anything is it totally your fault???

Does Neil know nothing of human psychology and trauma?
If you grow up in a ghetto where you have never had a face to face conversation of more than 30 seconds with a white person, have never met a doctor or a professor or a businessman – who will you have a roll models? Who can you look up to? What will give you the idea that people like you can succeed??? Environment and genes mean a lot.

And the absolutely level playing field doesn’t exist.

If the Liberal Left can create the common perception that success and failure are simple matters of “fortune” or “luck,” then it is easy to promote and justify their various income redistribution schemes. After all, we are just evening out the odds a little bit. This “success equals luck” idea the liberals like to push is seen everywhere. Former Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt refers to high-achievers as “people who have won life’s lottery.” He wants you to believe they are making the big bucks because they are lucky. It’s not luck, my friends. It’s choice.
One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was in a book by Og Mandino, entitled “The Greatest Secret in the World.” The lesson? Very simple: “Use wisely your power of choice.”
That bum sitting on a heating grate, smelling like a wharf rat? He’s there by choice. He is there because of the sum total of the choices he has made in his life. This truism is absolutely the hardest thing for some people to accept, especially those who consider themselves to be victims of something or other - victims of discrimination, bad luck, the system, capitalism, whatever. After all, nobody really wants to accept the blame for his or her position in life. Not when it is so much easier to point and say, “Look! He did this to me!” than it is to look into a mirror and say, “You S. O. B.! You did this to me!”

The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms.
Some of the choices are obvious: Whether or not to stay in school. Whether or not to get pregnant. Whether or not to hit the bottle. Whether or not to keep this job you hate until you get another better-paying job. Whether or not to save some of your money, or saddle yourself with huge payments for that new car.
>
Again Neil denies that any significant number of people have been ruined by poverty, child abuse – or live in an area of little or no opportunities. Liberals recognize that there are millions of people who may be physically unattractive and thus uninteresting to employers, millions who are shy, slow, backwards, ashamed, traumatized. We believe these people cannot be left to starve or become predatory criminals. We liberals believe taking care of the “unfortunates” is both humane and wise.

Conservatives ought to see that it is wise, too, as the price will ultimately be lower than a growing police state and higher walls.

You need to register to vote, unless you are on welfare. If you are living
off the efforts of others, please do us the favor of sitting down and shutting up until you are on your own again.

Oh, dear, the old the more money you have the more votes you should get?
We haven’t heard that since the land barons of Britain 200 years ago.

Liars cannot be trusted, even when the liar is the president of the country. If someone can’t deal honestly with you, send them packing.

At last we are in complete agreement. (Alas, we are all only too human – we prefer our liars to yours and vice versa..)

Don’t bow to the temptation to use the government as an instrument of plunder. If it is wrong for you to take money from someone else who earned it—to take their money by force for your own needs—then it is certainly just as wrong for you to demand that the government step forward and do this dirty work for you.

Don’t look in other people’s pockets. You have no business there. What they earn is theirs. What you earn is yours Keep it that way. Nobody owes you anything, except to respect your privacy and your rights, and leave you the hell alone.

This is only fine and true if you are such a he-man libertarian that you are against All taxes and all governments. If you are for some than we can debate on priorities.

Speaking of earning, the revered 40-hour workweek is for losers. Forty hours should be considered the minimum, not the maximum. You don’t see highly successful people clocking out of the office every afternoon at five. The losers are the ones caught up in that afternoon rush hour. The winners drive home in the dark.

Where is it chiseled in stone that the work week is at least 40 hours? It’s not the 11trh commandment! Neil thinks it’s too little. Others might say work 35 hours as in Europe and spend more time with your children, spend more time doing things instead of working and then buying happiness.

Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection.

Again us bleeding heart liberals have worked the hardest for free speech.

1. Proclaim your rarity. Each of you is a rare and unique human being.

We are both unique and one of many. No man is an island nor should he want to be one. But freedom and security can only truly exist when your neighbor has his as well.

2. Use wisely your power of choice.

Yes, but do not mock others whose range of choices are more limited than your own.

3. Go the extra mile ... drive home in the dark.

If you want to retain the love of your spouse and your children, don’t come home late from work too often. There are more important things than careers and money.

To sum up, a liberal wants the maximum of freedom and happiness and believes it can be more closely achieved by trying to insure it for others. We believe in true merit determining opportunities and promotion – once a level playing field is reached – when women or minorities are held back then true merit is never achieved. We seldom call ourselves Liberals but more Progressives because we hope for a world which is better for all, and we doubt that focusing mainly on already well off White Americans is the wisest course in the long run.

And sure.. the Liberal Society costs money – but so does other forms of necessary insurance.

We Liberals may well be wrong - but if so it’s for the right reasons. If Conservatives are right isn’t it for the wrong reasons? – the Holy Self!

P.S. I’ve often heard the epithet “Bleeding Heart Liberal” voiced by the same mouths who used to favor other cute phrases like “Nigger Lover” , “Fag” and “Kike.”

We are all known by the company we keep.